I have used this idea (sewing radials) for many years, and it works like a
charm in areas with lawns, thatch, or moderate undergrowth. I use a metal
rod about 1/8" diameter and about 6' long. I drilled a small hole at one
end of the rod to use for attaching the wire. The wire I use is electric
motor wire, about #18 or #20, with a tough enamel-like insulation. I got a
bucket of it a few years ago. The bucket, at the time, weighed about
70-pounds. It is much lighter now that I have laid out lots of radials.
The procedure I use is not complex ..... all I do is sit the bucket next to
the antenna, attach wire to rod, insert rod under the thatch, or at base of
lawn grass, and just work the rod along close to the ground. The process is
actually pretty fast .... I can usually put out a few hundred feet of
radials in a couple of hours. When you get a radial laid out there is no
visible evidence you were ever there. If you have an aversion to crawling,
this is not the method for you. However, it is great if you want to closely
inspect every inch of your property!
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-towertalk@contesting.com
[mailto:owner-towertalk@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Pete Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 3:01 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Sewing Radials in the lawn
At 02:35 PM 1/1/02 -0600, K9ZM wrote:
...
>Now that's a novel idea. Do you just mount your roll of wire near the
tower
>and sew your way around the lawn? Your south of the freeze zone I think,
>anyone have success doing that into a frozen lawn? I know that idea about
>scalping the lawn and waiting for grass to grow over it, but this would
>allow me to go places that I normally could not. i.e. down the alley etc.
>Anything I can do to hide it from rabbits is a plus as they like to chop my
>radials into little pieces, if laying on top of the ground. They have not
>bothered coax yet, but give them time.
Things are frozen pretty solid here, unfortunately -- tends to deter tower
work. In my case, the tower is in a back field which is somewhat overgrown
with brush, multiflora rose, etc. Using K1VR's big carpet needle let me
push the radials through under the rose thorns, etc. I don't want to
oversell this, though - you can't go very deep -- really just into the
thatch layer, and even then you have to resurface every so often.
I got 12 x 125 foot radials in this way before it got too cold. I attached
the tower end of each one to my radial plate, and then laid it out on the
ground more or less in the opposite direction from where I was going, and
stitched away. It was pretty easy to tell when you got to the end of the
radial, even working alone.
73, Pete N4ZR
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